Six Minutes
by Little Grey Kida
Summary: "Not all happy caged birds sing. Some remain silent, but when offered leave, will tie themselves to the perch with their entrails." Chell/GlaDOS


Whoosh. I was back at the start, coming out of statis. The intercom blares into life, but it is not the voice I need to hear. It's Wheatley's, not Her's. He's back. The stupid wireless command screen, inside every core, he had figured out how to come back through it like a portal, and he was back in charge. She was powerless- no, She was never powerless. She was more restricted in what she could do, certainly, but She always had power over me. And even after being thrown out of the throne chair of Aperture Science, she could always work her magic and get back in there.

Wheatley would never let me back in, not after I threw him into space. But getting by him was the easy part - just cutting the hair a little shorter this time, wear the jumpsuit in a different way… Six minutes it takes to disguise and each and every time Wheatley forgets who I am, thinking I'm just a rogue human, letting me back into the testing chambers with a smile and a wave. He wasn't the sharpest tool in the block, it had to be said, but this time I was grateful for the scientists who made him that way. Last time, we were escaping Her. This time, I was escaping him.

The first few levels, act cool. Act like an ordinary test subject. Try pushing the cube through the circular hole. Let him insult your intelligence. Let him rant and rave about the smelly humans for six minutes, let him fly around on the mobility rail with his smug attitude and his glittering eye. Let him fill his report, trying to guess my name but ultimately settling for one of his own creation (I think I'll call you… Bob! Bob's a nice name, nice name for a human. I like that…). Sometimes he mentions me. He tries to be cruel by comparing to this subject I'm impersonating to me, but I just inwardly smile because he hasn't realised his remarks are my compliments.

Into the lift, and down I go. This is the level. The lift slows and the doors open. The level sign flickers into life. And then I run. Wheatley's shouting after me, the floor's falling beneath me, the walls are growing spikes and coming ever closer, but I don't care, I just jump from one portal to the next, running across buttons, past cubes and turrets, across light bridges and then she's there and he can't find me any more. Six minutes it takes to clear one floor, six seconds to descend to the next level, but it's not the testing that I crave any more. There's always one crack, one gap in the wall, that he never closes up and it's behind there I want to go.

I impatiently push the stack of cubes aside and crawl behind the loose wall. A large wall of graffiti greets me, as usual, filled with tally marks and escape notes and sonnets and songs about companion cubes. Once upon a time maybe I would've sat and written such things, hiding from him in the test chamber, but now there is no need. The bond between tester and cube had fizzled long ago, snapped and shattered in the six minutes of desperation I have to love Her. There was no need to love a cube any longer. This was real. She was real.

My hip crashes into the railing, but I keep running. It hurts, but all the pain in the world is worth six minutes of Her time, is worth six minutes of basking in Her presence. I crash into the back up offices, using portals to get from one office to the next, past electric water and broken turrets and emergency levers. I hit the safe door and miraculously it creaks open, allowing me access into the next room. Over desks and under lasers, I run towards the Emergency Core Replacement Unit at the far end of the corridor. I give the door a kick and it falls in, revealing the mass of wires and computer terminals, flashing blue and green and red and sparking around a rectangular core sat in the unit.

She is here. And I fall to my knees in subservience to Her, and Wheatley is shouting something over the intercom but I don't care because she is looking at me with that baleful yellow eye, the one that once frowned in scorn at my attempts to kill Her, the one that looked and blinked and saw everything. She was everything. We don't talk to start, just stare at each other as the alarm bells around us ring out (six minutes to nuclear meltdown) and Wheatley is shouting about finding me and killing me, but I couldn't care less. She was here, and She was all I wanted.

"It's you."

I smile.

"Are you helping me or murdering me this time?"

I hold back a laugh. She has never forgiven me for that. I had forgiven Her for trying to kill me, it was only protocol. I doubted she would forgive her unruly Subject for disobeying a direct order. The intercom blared into life behind me, counting down to nuclear meltdown, but there was still Time. Still time with Her, to stay close and bask in Her presence, in the glow of the LCDs and wire sparks as she slowly fixed the unit.

"Once I've hacked the main frame, I should be able to overthrow this moron. Again. And then…"

I hold my breath. I can guess what is coming, it is always the same. I know she remembers she has told me this before, but she pretends that she does not. Each time this occurs, my breath catches and I hope to the Almighty that She stops pretending and gives us what we both want.

"...maybe I'll let you go."

I look to the floor. Always the same, using my freedom as bait. She still doesn't believe that I do not want to leave. That I wish to be under Her guidance, after all she has put me through. After the six minutes it takes for Her to fix the facility, She would grant me freedom. It was Caroline who forced this. Caroline had taught Her morals. She frees me as if I were a caged bird, because it's the right thing to do, not because it was what She wants. But I was not a caged bird singing for escape. If the cage door was opened I'd sit where I was, waiting for it to close. It is not right to be so dependant. I do not care for rights and wrongs - I had shed my morals and inhibitions long ago. But She cares. She is still learning, like a Subject first joining the facility, first learning that ethics don't get you any glory in this place.

"Pull the lever over there. Lets rip this moron from the shell."

We share mutual caring, but our relationship is at an impasse. I cannot make a move, and She is unwilling to make one. She needs time. Time is something I can give. I pull the lever a second after the countdown hits zero, so that she has the time to hack the mainframe, but not before one explosion goes off beneath my feet and I plunge downwards. Time was a loop in this place - each time I die, the world shifts and I am back at the start, and She is unhurt and alive has Time to think again.

I hear her scream as I plummet towards the water, every floor and scaffold and pipe rearranging itself to try and halt my fall, but She is too late to save me, and I hit the water with a crack. The pain rages in my head, but I tell myself again and again that soon, for six minutes once more I will be in Her presence, and this time she might ask me to stay, and my heart bursts at the thought, and I impatiently wait for the world to rearrange and to let me run to Her again.

Because with Her, for six minutes, everything is okay.


End file.
